By Quinn Ford
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — A Logan Square man has been charged with a felony after he was arrested along with two others while protesting the fatal shooting of a black teenager by police in Ferguson, Mo., police said.
Richard Newburger, 57, of the 2300 block of North Spaulding Avenue, has been charged with one felony count of aggravated battery to a police officer after he was arrested Wednesday afternoon near State Street and Jackson Boulevard, police said.
Two women, both 63 years-old, were also arrested during the protest, said Officer Hector Alfaro, a police spokesman. One woman was charged with obstructing traffic and resisting a police officer, both misdemeanor charges, Alfaro said. The other woman was charged with obstructing traffic.
The three joined a group of demonstrators who gathered Wednesday afternoon to protest the decision not to charge a Ferguson, Mo. police officer with fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown in August. Fellow protestors said Newburger and the two women were arrested after they “peacefully stepped into the street...with a banner calling for ‘Justice for Mike Brown!’”
The protest was one of many in Chicago and across the country after an announcement Monday that a Missouri grand jury would not charge Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in Brown’s shooting.
Earlier Wednesday, a group of about 15 people gathered at a DePaul University bookstore plaza Wednesday afternoon in the Loop.
Organized by a group that calls itself the “Revolutionary Communist Party,” protesters held a banner that said “Justice for Mike Brown” and called for the public to recognize Friday not as a shopping day but as “Black lives matter Friday.”
A spokeswoman said protesters plan to hold another rally Friday at Water Tower Place.
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